The first officially recognized transsexual gender reassignment surgery in the history of plastic medicine was performed in 1954 on a patient named Christine Jorgensen. After 60 years, such operations have become commonplace for Russians. But if in North America and Western Europe they allow transsexuals to continue to live in peace and work in their gender field, then in Russia they often only lead to the emergence of new serious problems.
Hormone game
The life of TS, transsexuals is endless attempts to break out of the vicious circle. FtM - from English Female to Male, or MtF - Male to Female, falls into it from birth. FtM stands for female-to-male transsexual transition. MtF - on the contrary, from masculine to feminine. The reason for the birth of a transsexual of any of the two types is natural, depending solely on the hormonal background of his mother. A child is born with gender dysphoria: physiologically - one sex, mentally (gender) - the opposite.
With dysphoria "gifted" by the parents, the biological boy / gender girl, and vice versa, is forced to exist until death. At the same time, until a certain age, they do not even suspect about her. And then for many years they do not understand what is happening to them and how to deal with this strange condition and constant depression. A serious problem is, in particular, the fact that neither transsexuality nor gender dysphoria has external signs.
Even an experienced pediatrician is unable to distinguish one healthy child from another who has inherited an actually endocrine disease. By the way, according to ICD-10, the latest version of the International Classification of Diseases, transsexualism is a psychiatric illness, treatment for which is not applied. It has long been established that it is possible to only partially eliminate dysphoria by bringing the biological (passport) sex of a person closer to gender. This is done by hormone therapy, feminizing for MtF and masculinizing for FtM, plastic surgery and assistance in social adaptation.
Fight for life
Truly painful dysphoric attacks begin in transsexuals from the very beginning of adulthood. More precisely, after they fully realized their bisexual state, and received all the necessary knowledge. After meeting through the Internet with other people suffering from a similar disease, with scientific works and sometimes ridiculous publications in the media. By the way, it is the lack of such information, the inability to change your situation, to get answers to all questions and is the main reason that many transsexuals prefer to die early.
The list of the most important problems affecting, among other things, suicide, includes a high degree of transphobia in Russian society, the need to take expensive hormones that destroy health all their lives, the almost complete absence of doctors who understand the problems of transsexuals and are able to help them. Equally important is the legal non-recognition of the CU by the state, the complete absence of regulations governing the process of their treatment, transition and change of documents, the inaccessibility of qualified medical, legal and social assistance.
Almost all transsexuals eventually face an open misunderstanding of family and relatives, up to expulsion from home and forced relocation to another city, loss of children, friends and social circle, discrimination. Moreover, both at work, where they are often subjected to psychological pressure and forced to quit, and when looking for it. The more time the vehicles are in transit, as the transsexual transition is called in the slang of this group of people, the more negatively even the use of the passport name and gender in relation to them is perceived.
Passion by passport
Huge difficulties are created by the “passport dysphoria” formulated by the researcher of the phenomenon of transsexualism in Russia, Yulia Solovieva. Its essence is that the appearance and name, under which the vehicle lives in society after entering the so-called coming-out, disclosure, often no longer correspond to the photograph and other personal data in the previous passport. As a result, a person regularly has difficulties, for example, when issuing and using bank cards, receiving money transfers, buying tickets and boarding a train or plane.
For a vehicle that has already changed its appearance, it is unlikely to get a loan, certify a document from a notary, cross the border, get a job. That is, to carry out any procedure that requires the full identity of the bearer of the passport to his data. On the other hand, it is no less difficult to get a passport that matches the gender, new appearance and chosen name and surname. After all, the Russian registry offices, having no legal basis, carry out a shift, and even then not always, only after the transsexual presents a document from the hospital, which officially certifies that one of the sex reassignment surgeries has been performed. Or by court order. If they want, they don't have to.
It should be borne in mind that the cost of such operations sometimes reaches two or three hundred thousand rubles. And not in the amount. People, as a rule, who do not have a permanent income, living alone, can not always afford such expenses. In practice, this means that a vehicle has the right to have a passport with its actual data only after he or she voluntarily becomes disabled for his own money. But at the same time, he will not receive a disability group, or even the opportunity, if he works, to take a sick leave.
Change of documents
Completely such a procedure is as follows:
- Carrying out at least one surgical operation to remove the primary sexual characteristics;
- obtaining a document from the hospital about such an operation;
- litigation (not always);
- change in the registry office at the place of registration of the birth certificate and full name, obtaining the appropriate certificate;
- Replacement on its basis of a civil passport and all other documents - a diploma of education, work record book, driver's license, warrant for an apartment, military ID, insurance and pension certificates and others.
However, even in the case of a successful change of documents, sometimes dragging on for years, the hopes of a transsexual for employment and a happy life are minimal. Unless, of course, TS is supermodel Andrea Pejic, ex-Miss Universe contender Jenna Talakova or Eurovision winner Dana International. But out of hundreds of thousands of transsexuals, only a few get into the world of show business. There are no Russians among them, with the exception of the singer Juliet Bashirova, who once tried to become a participant in the same Eurovision Song Contest, no. They are also unlikely to appear in the foreseeable future.